God's Shalom Project

An Engaging Look At The Bible's Sweeping Store

Bernhard Ott

• Publisher: Good Books
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781561484621
• eBook ISBN: 9781680992380
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Personal Success

The author sees God as a gracious parent, intent on a restored relationship with humans. It is that ongoing effort which Ott calls the Shalom Project. Ott believes that "God wants a Shalom people, " a community of the faithful who together love God and each other, and then live in the world within that strength.

1.

When your children ask you …

Welcome!

God has a project. God invites us to be co-workers in this project. That is why I am a Christian … and an enthusiastic one at that! How regrettable when being a Christian is portrayed as something boring, something disengaged from the real world, or mere theory. If the God of the Bible has invited humans to participate in God’s great plan for the universe, then God is certainly not interested in merely teaching humans boring theology.

Unfortunately there are lots of people who call themselves Christian, who speak of a personal relationship with Jesus, but have only a vague idea of what God’s plans and goals are. Many have come to Christ because they have been concerned about the salvation of their souls. They have experienced conversion, and that’s enough to give them security about their eternal destiny. And yet many of them have almost no clue about what God’s great project is, nor how, since the creation of the earth, humans have been drawn into the fulfillment of God’s plan. Nor do they understand how God deals with humans as they are drawn into the project of fulfilling this plan.

Sometimes it is the reverse … People are fascinated by the teaching of Jesus (for example the Sermon on the Mount) and with great passion set out to change the world. But with the passing of time, their energies drain away and they give up their goals with resignation. What is missing is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Have these people understood any better than the others what God’s plans and purposes for humanity really are?

This book is about God’s project. Its goal is to motivate and invite people to a joyful and committed Christian life.

Bible doctrine? Or telling the story?

What is the Christian faith about? How are we to summarize briefly and forthrightly the main truths of Scripture? I’ve been working with these questions now for over 25 years. Teaching the Bible has always been at the center of my heart. Whether as a children’s Sunday school teacher, as a writer of Sunday school material for a denomination, as a Bible school or Bible college teacher, or as a preacher or conference speaker in many places—I have always been seeking to present basic biblical truths in interesting and fascinating ways so that people are invited to become part of God’s project.

Always, a key question for me has been: How can the old message be told in a new situation without losing its abiding truth, but in a way that speaks with freshness and relevance? My question concerns not only the content of the Bible’s teaching, but also the way it is passed on. How are the teachings of the Bible passed on most effectively?

When Israelite children asked their parents, “What is our faith all about? Why do we live as we do? Why do we pray? Why do we worship as we do?” their parents did not respond:

First, this is what God is like …

Second, we human beings are like this …

Third, this is what happens when we sin …

Fourth, we are supposed to understand God’s commandments like this …

Fifth …

Rather than learning creeds and catechisms, the children were told stories!1 In fact they were told the story …

We were slaves in Egypt, but then God did a miracle, bringing us out of Egypt and setting us free. God forged us into a community, a community that would hold together through thick and thin. God told us how we were supposed to live—how to live successfully. And then God led us along the road toward the Promised Land, to the land in which we would live according to the pattern God had showed us. There we would be able to live happy and contented lives, no longer as slaves, but as people set free. And all the nations around us would be astonished and say, “What a great and wise God their God must be!” All along the way our God has protected us from danger, met all our needs, given us food and drink. You see, that is why we pray and worship our God and live according to the pattern God gave us. That is what real life is all about.

The Bible is not a theology textbook full of definitions of God and the world, but rather a fascinating narrative, telling a not-yetfinished story of God’s ongoing dealings with people throughout history. And we are all invited to be a part of this story.

How to use this book

This book has its origins in real-life experiences and was designed to be used in real-life situations. This also explains its structure.

Telling the story

For years I have attempted to retell the stories of God’s dealings with humanity in many different kinds of situations. I’ve tried to tell them in succinct and captivating ways. These stories, which contribute to our understanding of God’s project, make up the beginning of each chapter in this book.

Thinking along and discussing

Yet this book is designed to invite readers to think beyond what is written. Each chapter contains questions designed to facilitate personal reflection and/or group study.

Perhaps the reader will sometimes ask: “Where do we find this in the Bible? How might Bernhard defend such an idea? Where did this notion come from?” And sometimes readers will disagree with what is written. At least that has often happened in the past as I have shared these ideas. And when that happens, interesting discussions often follow. Sometimes I have only needed to clarify what I meant, and these clarifications, in turn, have often found their way into the footnotes of this book.

Sometimes, however, the material here has led to lively debates about theological issues or about the practical implications of what I have written. My goal is also to motivate discussions and debates among those who read this book. Many of the questions that have been asked by past hearers have been incorporated at the end of each chapter into a fictional “letter exchange.” Hopefully this dialogue will also encourage you to think more deeply about these matters or will lead to good discussions in study groups.

And now I invite you to a journey through the Bible that just might change your life.

 

1 Deuteronomy 6:20-25. (I will not always follow exactly any particular translation. Sometimes I will put the text into my own words, following closely well-known translations, or, where it seems important to do so, I will more literally reproduce the original text.)

2.

God has a project

The will of God

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” These are words from the Lord’s Prayer. Yet some might legitimately ask, “The will of God?2 What is that? Who knows God’s will? Can we know God’s will?”

When God called Abraham, he said, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you.”3 At the burning bush, God’s self-revelation to Moses included the words, “I have observed the misery of my people. I have come down to deliver them.” Later, when Moses asked about this again, he was given a precise answer: “I will free you and deliver you. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. I will bring you into the land.”4 And that is how it goes through the entire Bible, right through to the vision of John who wrote: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.”5 God does have a will, a plan, a goal. God has a project.

“In the beginning”—this is how the Bible’s story begins. And in the book of Revelation history is straining toward its goal. Human history, according to the biblical perspective, has a beginning and it has an ultimate goal. It is not an endless cycle, as many religions would view it. At the beginning is God’s creative word; God determines the beginning. And God has a goal, a plan, a project, as I will call it in what follows.

Our goal will be to gain some insight into God’s project. Even a short introduction to God’s purposes and goals can give our Christian life a new perspective.

But what is God’s project?

In Psalm 85:9 we read that God wills peace (Shalom). For this reason I call God’s plan the “Shalom project.” Contrary to what some might think, the Hebrew word Shalom has a much broader meaning than our word “peace.”

Shalom has to do with payment. A look at a Hebrew lexicon reveals that Shalom is derived from the verb shillem, which means “to pay.” One might say that there is Shalom when payment has been made, when there is no more debt. The Hebrew greeting “sha’al shalom” is not merely a wish for peace; it is actually a question: “Is there Shalom, or are there still debts to be paid?” Or paraphrased: “Are you happy to see me, or do I still owe you something?” If there is still a debt to be paid, there is not yet Shalom. But debts can be paid, and Shalom can return again.

But what if a debt is so great that it can never be paid? The only two solutions then, according to ancient Hebrew culture, are for someone to intervene and pay the “Shalom price” in place of the debtor, or else for the debt to be forgiven. In the Old Testament, God’s people knew various institutions designed to restore Shalom by means of “Shalom price.”6

But we all know that financial debts are not the only kinds of debts people owe. Humans cause injuries, pain, and injustices that cannot be reconciled with money alone. In situations like these, forgiveness is needed. That implies that people are released from the debts they owe and are not punished for having incurred them in the first place.

Shalom had another dimension in Israel beyond issues of payment. The relationship between humans and God is described with this concept. If everything is right between people and God, then there is Shalom. However, the Bible bears constant witness to the fact that things are not always right between people and God. Humans fell from their original relationship with the Creator and now do what they wish, not even listening to God’s good voice. They have become debtors. How can Shalom be restored between humans and God? This, too, is what the biblical story is all about.

In sum: When things are the way they are supposed to be in human life, Shalom exists. There is Shalom when we can look God in the eye and know there is no guilt or debt. There is Shalom when we as humans can look each other in the eye and ask, “Are you happy to see me? Or is there still something between us?” and we can answer with a laugh: “Everything is right between us!” In fact, Shalom even means that we can “look creation in the eye”—God’s good creation in which we live.

Often we find ourselves far from this ideal. And we long for a life of Shalom. We want a life in which everything is “right.” And that’s what life was meant to be. God wants this, too. This is what God’s project is all about. This is what God is at work to accomplish. In fact, the story of the Bible is at its heart the story of God on a journey with humans on the way of Shalom. It is an invitation to join God again and again on this journey.

For further reflection

1. How do I understand the word “peace”? What does peace include for me? How does my understanding of peace differ from the biblical meaning of peace (Shalom) described above?

2. Do I live in hope that there will one day be true peace in this world?

3. Are our churches instruments of God’s peace? How can they become increasingly so?

4. Where am I at the present time involved in situations of conflict? How am I experiencing the conflict? What steps need to be taken in the direction of peace?

5. Why is peace so endangered? What makes us fail so often to live peacefully?

6. What do I hope to gain from a biblical study of this theme?

A Note to the readers: I am a teacher, and I like the give-andtake of the classroom. I miss that when I write a book. So I’ve created two i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface by Ruedi Josuran
• 1. When your children ask you . . .
• 2. God has a project
• 3. In the beginning
• 4. People are not robots
• 5. A new beginning
• 6. Is everything lost?
• 7. Finally!
• 8. It is a long journey
• 9. When things are going well . . .
• 10. . . . and when they are not!
• 11. Jesus, ben Joseph from Nazareth
• 12. God’s dynamite
• 13. For those who understand this . . .
• 14. The mystery
• 15. Caesar’s competition
• 16. But . . .?!
• 17. The goal
• For Further Reading—An Annotated Bibliography
• Index of Scriptures
• About the Author
• About the Translator